What's Going On in Independent Film

Alfre Woodard and Jack Truman

2002 Screen Actor's Guild Protest

I can't stand Hollywood.

Now, when I say I can't stand Hollywood, I don't mean the actual town. When you're in Hollywood, it's pretty cool. And the liberal life is great. And when I say Hollywood, I don't mean the people. There's some neat and alternative people in that town.

When I say I can't stand Hollywood, I mean I can't stand the big Hollywood studios and the big budget movies.

It's easy to flip on your TV and pick a channel that has shows any dummy can think up. I mean, how hard is it to make a show about spoiled rich people and follow them around in their lives? These reality shows are a joke. And most of the TV shows have no originality. It's a reflection of what's playing in your local movie theater. If you go to the movies on a Friday night at your local movie multiplex cinema, out of the 20 movies playing there, you might be lucky to find one movie that has an original story. It's either a big budget sequel, a cartoon movie, a shoot em up action film, or a movie for kids, teens and college kids. The dummies that run the big studios in Hollywood and make the big bucks nowadays are these dumb rich kids that have an MBA, no life experience, and think they know what people want to see. Nothing is further than the truth.

Which is why I love independent film. You want to see a good movie, a good story on film, something original, you have to watch an independent film.

That's all there is to it.

If you're like me, and like to watch the types of films that most people don't, or the types of films that are hard to watch, then you're into independent film too.

Truly independent film, and even underground film, is very cool to watch. And there's a whole world of underground, independent, low budget, micro budget, even no budget movies to watch that put these 100 million dollar movies to shame.

It's easy to find out what's going on in independent film. The news is right at your fingertips.

Every day, I go to Google News and look for the current news stories in independent film. If you go to Google News and type in a search for 'independent film', or even 'underground film', you can find out everything current that's up to the minute on the independent film world. And you don't even have to leave your home. How cool is that?

In fact, I just checked Google News for the news stories for 'underground film' a few minutes ago, and the top story was for the RXSM Film Festival in March, where we'll be screening a block of 6 of our hit short films. So there you go.

It doesn't get more independent and underground than that.